LIGHT AND CREATIVE DAYS.
"And God said, Let light be, and light was; and God saw the
light that it was good, and separated the light from the
darkness; and God called the light Day; and the darkness he
called Night. And Evening was and Morning was--Day
one."--Genesis i., 3-5.
Light is the first element of order and perfection introduced upon our
planet--the first innovation on the old regime of darkness and
desolation. There is a beautiful propriety in this, for the Hebrew
_Aur_ (light) should be viewed as including heat and electricity as
well as light; and these three forces--if they are really distinct,
and not merely various movements of one and the same ether--are in
themselves, or the proximate causes of their manifestation, the prime
movers of the machinery of nature, the vivifying forces without which
the primeval desolation would have been eternal. The statement
presented here is, however, a bold one. Light without luminaries,
which were afterward formed--independent light, so to speak, shining
all around the earth--is an idea not likely to have occurred in the
days of Moses to the framer of a fictitious cosmogony, and yet it
corresponds in a remarkable manner with some of the theories which
have grown out of modern induction.
I have said that the Hebrew word translated "light" includes the
vibratory movements which we call heat and electricity as well. I make
this statement, not intending to assert that the Hebrews experimented
on these forces in the manner of modern science, and would therefore
be prepared to understand their laws or correlations as fully as we
can. I give the word this general sense simply because throughout the
Bible it is used to denote the solar light and heat, and also the
electric light of the thunder-cloud: "the light of His cloud," "the
bright light which is in the clouds." The absence of "_aur_,"
therefore, in the primeval earth, is the absence of solar radiation,
of the lightning's flash, and of volcanic fires. We shall in the
succeeding verses find additional reasons for excluding all these
phenomena from the darkness of the primeval night.
The light of the first day can not reasonably be supposed to have been
in any other than a visible and active state. Whether light be, as
supposed by the older physicists, luminous matter radiated with
immense velocity, or, as now appears more probable, merely the
undulations of a universally diffused ether, its motion had already
commenced. The idea of the matter of light as distinct from its power
of affecting the senses does not appear in the Scriptures any farther
than that the Hebrew name is probably radically identical with the
word ether now used to express the undulating medium by which light is
propagated; and if it did, the general creation of matter being stated
in verse 1, and the notice of the separation of light and darkness
being distinctly given in the present verse, there is no place left
for such a view here. For this reason, that explanation of these words
which supposes that on the first day the _matter_ of light, or the
ether whose motions produce light, was created, and that on the fourth
day, when luminaries were appointed, it became visible by beginning to
undulate, must be abandoned; and the connection between these two
statements must be sought in some other group of facts than that
connected with the existence of the matter of light as distinct from
its undulations.
What, then, was the nature of the light which on the first day shone
without the presence of any local luminary? It must have proceeded
from luminous matter diffused through the whole space of the solar
system, or surrounding our globe as with a mantle. It was "clothed
with light as with a garment,"
"Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun was not."
We have already rejected the hypothesis that the primeval night
proceeded from a temporary obscuration of the atmosphere; and the
expression, "God said, Let light be," affords an additional reason,
since, in accordance with the strict precision of language which
everywhere prevails in this ancient document, a mere restoration of
light would not be stated in such terms. If we wish to find a natural
explanation of the mode of illumination referred to, we must recur to
one or other of the suppositions mentioned above, that the luminous
matter formed a nebulous atmosphere, slowly concentrating itself
toward the centre of the solar system, or that it formed a special
envelope of our earth, which subsequently disappeared.
We may suppose this light-giving matter to be the same with that which
now surrounds the sun, and constitutes the stratum of luminous
substance which, by its wondrous and unceasing power of emitting
light, gives him all his glory. To explain the division of the light
from the darkness, we need only suppose that the luminous matter, in
the progress of its concentration, was at length all gathered within
the earth's orbit, and then, as one hemisphere only would be
illuminated at a time, the separation of light from darkness, or of
day from night, would be established. This hypothesis, suggested by
the words themselves, affords a simple and natural explanation of a
statement otherwise obscure.
It is an instructive circumstance that the probabilities respecting
the early state of our planet, thus deduced from the Scriptural
narrative, correspond very closely with the most ingenious and truly
philosophical speculation ever hazarded respecting the origin of our
solar system. I refer to the cosmical hypothesis of La Place, which
was certainly formed without any reference to the Bible; and by
persons whose views of the Mosaic narrative are of that shallow
character which is too prevalent, has been suspected as of infidel
tendency. La Place's theory is based on the following properties of
the solar system, which will be found referred to in this connection
in many popular works on astronomy: 1. The orbits of the planets are
nearly circular. 2. They revolve nearly in the plane of the sun's
equator.[43] 3. They all revolve round the sun in one direction, which
is also the direction of the sun's rotation. 4. They rotate on their
axes also, as far as is known, in the same direction. 5. Their
satellites, with the exception of those of Uranus and Neptune, revolve
in the same direction. Now all these coincidences can scarcely have
been fortuitous, and yet they might have been otherwise without
affecting the working of the system; and, farther, if not fortuitous,
they correspond precisely with the results which would flow from the
condensation of a revolving mass of nebulous matter. La Place,
therefore, conceived that in the beginning the matter of our system
existed in the condition of a mass of vaporous material, having a
central nucleus more or less dense, and the whole rotating in a
uniform direction. Such a mass must, "in condensing by cold, leave in
the plane of its equator zones of vapor composed of substances which
required an intense degree of cold to return to a liquid or solid
state. These zones must have begun by circulating round the sun in the
form of concentric rings, the most volatile molecules of which must
have formed the superior part, and the most condensed the inferior
part. If all the nebulous molecules of which these rings are composed
had continued to cool without disuniting, they would have ended by
forming a liquid or solid ring. But the regular constitution which all
parts of the ring would require for this, and which they would have
needed to preserve when cooling, would make this phenomenon extremely
rare. Accordingly the solar system presents only one instance of
it--that of the rings of Saturn. Generally the ring must have broken
into several parts which have continued to circulate round the sun,
and with almost equal velocity, while at the same time, in consequence
of their separation, they would acquire a rotatory motion round their
respective centres of gravity; and as the molecules of the superior
part of the ring--that is to say, those farthest from the centre of
the sun--had necessarily an absolute velocity greater than the
molecules of the inferior part which is nearest it, the rotatory
motion common to all the fragments must always have been in the same
direction with the orbitual motion. However, if after their division
one of these fragments has been sufficiently superior to the others to
unite them to it by its attraction, they will have formed only a mass
of vapor, which, by the continual friction of all its parts, must have
assumed the form of a spheroid, flattened at the poles and expanded in
the direction of its equator."[44] Here, then, are rings of vapor left
by the successive retreats of the atmosphere of the sun, changed into
so many planets in the condition of vapor, circulating round the
central orb, and possessing a rotatory motion in the direction of
their revolution, while the solar mass was gradually contracting
itself round its centre and assuming its present organized form. Such
is a general view of the hypothesis of La Place, which may also be
followed out into all the known details of the solar system, and will
be found to account for them all. Into these details, however, we can
not now enter. Let us now compare this ingenious speculation with the
Scripture narrative. In both we have the raw material of the heavens
and the earth created before it assumed its distinct forms. In both we
have that state of the planets characterized as without form and void,
the condensing nebulous mass of La Place's theory being in perfect
correspondence with the Scriptural "deep." In both it is implied that
the permanent mutual relations of the several bodies of the system
must have been perfected long after their origin. Lastly, supposing
the luminous atmosphere of our sun to have been of such a character as
to concentrate itself wholly around the centre of the system, and that
as it became concentrated it acquired its intense luminosity, we have
in both the production of light from the same cause; and in both it
would follow that the concentration of this matter within the orbit of
the earth would effect the separation of day from night, by
illuminating alternately the opposite sides of the earth. It is true
that the theory of La Place does not provide for any such special
condensation of luminous matter, nor for any precise stage of the
process as that in which the arrangements of light and darkness should
be completed; but under his hypothesis it seems necessary to account
in some such way for the sole luminosity of the sun; and the point of
separation of day and night must have been a marked epoch in the
history of the process for each planet. The theory of accretion of
matter which has in modern times been associated with that of La Place
would equally well accord with the indications in our Mosaic
record.[45]
It is further to be observed that so long as the material of the earth
constituted a part of the great vaporous mass, it would be encompassed
with its diffused light, and that after it had been left outside the
contracting solar envelope, it might still retain some independent
luminosity in its atmosphere, a trace of which may still exist in the
auroral displays of the upper strata of the air. The earth might thus
at first be in total darkness. It might then be dimly lighted by the
surrounding nebulosity, or by a luminous envelope in its own
atmosphere. Then it might, as before explained, relapse into the
darkness of its misty mantle, and as this cleared away and the light
of the sun increased and became condensed, the latter would gradually
be installed into his office as the sole orb of day. It is quite
evident that we thus have a sufficient hypothetical explanation of the
light of the first of the creative aeons; and this is all that in the
present state of science we can expect. "Where is the way where light
dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, that thou
shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and know the way to the house
thereof?"
For the reasons above given, we must regard the hypothesis of the
great French astronomer as a wonderful approximation to the grand and
simple plan of the construction of our system as revealed in
Scripture. Nor must we omit to notice that the telescope and the
spectroscope reveal to us in the heavens gaseous nebular bodies which
may well be new systems in progress of formation, and in which the
Creator is even now dividing the light from the darkness. Still
another thought in connection with this subject is that the theory of
a condensing system affords a measure of the aggregate time occupied
in the work of creation. Sir William Thomson's well-known calculations
give us one hundred millions of years as the possible age of the earth
as a planetary globe; but calculations of the sun's heat as produced
by gravitation alone would give a much less time. We have, however, a
right to assume an original heated condition of the vaporous mass from
which the sun was formed. Still the date above given would seem to be
a maximum rather than a minimum age for the solar system.
"God saw the light that it was good," though it illuminated but a
waste of lifeless waters. It was good because beautiful in itself, and
because God saw it in its relations to long trains of processes and
wonderful organic structures on which it was to act as a vivifying
agency. Throughout the Scriptures light is not only good, but an
emblem of higher good. In Psalm civ. God is represented as "clothing
himself with light as with a garment;" and in many other parts of
these exquisite lyrics we have similar figures. "The Lord is my light
and salvation;" "Lift up the light of thy countenance upon me;" "The
entrance of thy law giveth light;" "The path of the just is as a
shining light." And the great spiritual Light of the world, the "only
begotten of the Father," the mediator alike in creation and
redemption, is himself the "Sun of Righteousness." Perhaps the noblest
Scripture passage relating to the blessing of light is one in the
address of Jehovah to Job, which is unfortunately so imperfectly
translated in the English version as to be almost unintelligible:
"Hast thou in thy lifetime given law to the morning,
Or caused the dawn to know its place,
That it may enclose the horizon in its grasp,
And chase the robbers before it:
It rolls along as the seal over the clay,
Causing all things to stand forth in gorgeous apparel."[46]
Job xxxviii., 12.
The concluding words, "Day one," bring us to the consideration of one
of the most difficult problems in this history, and one on which its
significance in a great measure depends--the meaning of the word
_day_, and the length of the days of creation.
In pursuing this investigation, I shall refrain from noticing in
detail the views of the many able modern writers who, from Cuvier, De
Luc, and Jameson, down to Hugh Miller, Donald McDonald, and Tayler
Lewis, have maintained the period theory, or those equally numerous
and able writers who have supported the opposite view. I acknowledge
obligations to them all, but prefer to direct my attention immediately
to the record itself.
The first important fact that strikes us is one which has not
received the attention it deserves, viz., that the word _day_ is
evidently used in three senses in the record itself. We are told
(verse 5th) that God called the _light_, that is, the diurnal
continuance of light, day. We are also informed that the _evening_ and
the _morning_ were the first day. Day, therefore, in one of these
clauses is the light as separated from the darkness, which we may call
the _natural day_; in the other it is the whole time occupied in the
creation of light and its separation from the darkness, whether that
was a _civil or astronomical day_ of twenty-four hours or some longer
period. In other words, the daylight, to which God is represented as
restricting the use of the term day, is only a part of a day of
creation, which included both light and darkness, and which might be
either a civil day or a longer period, but could not be the natural
day intervening between sunrise and sunset, which is the _ordinary_
day of Scripture phraseology. Again, in the 4th verse of chapter ii.,
which begins the second part of the history, the whole creative week
is called one day--"In the day that Jehovah Elohim made the earth and
the heavens." Such an expression must surely in such a place imply
more than a mere inadvertence on the part of the writer or writers.
To pave the way for a right understanding of the day of creation, it
may be well to consider, in the first place, the manner in which the
_shorter day_ is introduced. In the expression, "God _called_ the
light day," we find for the first time the Creator naming his works,
and we may infer that some important purpose was to be served by this.
The nature of this purpose we ascertain by comparison with other
instances of the same kind occurring in the chapter. God called the
darkness night, the firmament heaven, the dry land earth, the gathered
waters seas. In all these cases the purpose seems to have been one of
verbal definition, perhaps along with an assertion of sovereignty. It
was necessary to distinguish the diurnal darkness from that unvaried
darkness which had been of old, and to discriminate between the
limited waters of an earth having dry land on its surface and those of
the ancient universal ocean. This is effected by introducing two new
terms, night and seas. In like manner it was necessary to mark the new
application of the term earth to the dry land, and that of heaven to
the atmosphere, more especially as these were the senses in which the
words were to be popularly used. The intention, therefore, in all
these cases was to affix to certain things names different from those
which they had previously borne in the narrative, and to certain terms
new senses differing from those in which they had been previously
used. Applying this explanation here, it results that the probable
reason for calling the light day is to point out that the word occurs
in two senses, and that while it was to be the popular and proper term
for the natural day, this sense must be distinguished from its other
meaning as a day of creation. In short, we may take this as a plain
and authoritative declaration _that the day of creation is not the day
of popular speech_. We see in this a striking instance of the general
truth that in the simplicity of the structure of this record we find
not carelessness, but studied and severe precision, and are warned
against the neglect of the smallest peculiarities in its diction.
What, then, is the day of creation, as distinguished by Moses himself
from the natural day. The general opinion, and that which at first
sight appears most probable, is that it is merely the ordinary civil
day of twenty-four hours. Those who adopt this view insist on the
impropriety of diverting the word from its usual sense. Unfortunately,
however, for this argument, the word is not very frequently used in
the Scriptures for the whole twenty-four hours of the earth's
revolution. Its etymology gives it the sense of the time of glowing or
warmth, and in accordance with this the divine authority here limits
its meaning to the daylight. Accordingly throughout the Hebrew
Scriptures _yom_ is generally the natural and not the civil day; and
where the latter is intended, the compound terms "day and night" and
"evening and morning" are frequently used. Any one who glances over
the word "day" in a good English concordance can satisfy himself of
this fact. But the sense of natural day from sunrise to sunset is
expressly excluded here by the context, as already shown; and all that
we can say in favor of the interpretation that limits the day of
creation to twenty-four hours, is that next to the use of the word for
the natural day, which is its true popular meaning, its use for the
civil day is perhaps the most frequent. It is therefore by no means a
statement of the whole truth to affirm, as many writers have done,
that the civil day is _the ordinary_ meaning of the term. At the same
time we may admit that this is _one_ of its ordinary meanings, and
therefore may be its meaning here. Another argument frequently urged
is that the day of creation is said to have had an evening and
morning. We shall consider this more fully in the sequel, and in the
mean time may observe that it appears rather hazardous to attribute an
ordinary evening and morning to a day which, on the face of the
record, preceded the formation and arrangement of the luminaries which
are "for days and for years."[47]
But it may be affirmed that in the Bible long and undefined periods
are indicated by the word "day." In many of these cases the word is in
the plural: as Genesis iv., 3, "And after days it came to pass,"
rendered in our version "in process of time;" Genesis xl., 4, "days in
ward," rendered "a season." Such instances as these are not applicable
to the present question, since the plural may have the sense of
indefinite time, merely by denoting an undetermined number of natural
days. Passages in which the singular occurs in this sense are those
which strictly apply to the case in hand, and such are by no means
rare. A very remarkable example is that in Genesis ii., 4, already
mentioned, where we find, "In the day when Jehovah Elohim made the
earth and the heavens." This day must either mean the beginning, or
must include the whole six days; most probably the latter, since the
word "made" refers not to the act of creation, properly so called, but
to the elaborating processes of the creative week; and occurring as
this does immediately after the narrative of creation, it seems almost
like an intentional intimation of the wide import of the creative
days. It has been objected, however, that the expression "in the day"
is properly a compound adverb, having the force of "when" or "at the
time." But the learned and ingenious authors who urge this objection
have omitted to consider the relative probabilities as to whether the
adverbial use had arisen while the word _yom_ meant simply a day, or
whether the use of the noun for long periods was the reason of the
introduction of such an adverbial expression. The probabilities are in
favor of the latter, for it is not likely that men would construct an
adverb referring to indefinite time from a word denoting one of the
most precisely limited portions of time, unless that word had also a
second and more unlimited sense. Admitting, therefore, that the phrase
is an adverb of time, its use so early as the date of the composition
of Genesis, to denote a period longer than a literal day, seems to
imply that this indefinite use of the word was of high antiquity, and
probably preceded the invention of any term by which long periods
could be denoted.
This use of the word "day" is, however, not limited to cases of the
occurrence of the formula "in the day." The following are a few out of
many instances that might be quoted: Job xviii., 20, "They that come
after him shall be astonished at his day;" Job xv., 32, "It shall be
accomplished before his _time_;" Judges xviii., 30, "Until the day of
the captivity of the land;" Deut. i., 39, "And your children which in
that day had no knowledge of good and evil;" Gen. xxxix., 10, "And it
came to pass about that time" (on that day). We find also abundance of
such expressions as "day of calamity," "day of distress," "day of
wrath," "day of God's power," "day of prosperity." In such passages
the word is evidently used in the sense of era or period of time, and
this in prose as well as poetry.
There is a remarkable passage in the Psalms, which conveys the idea of
a day of God as distinct from human or terrestrial days:
"Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction,
And sayest, Return, ye children of men;
For a thousand years are in thy sight as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night."[48]
It is a singular coincidence that the authorship of this Psalm is
attributed to Moses, and that its style and language correspond with
the songs credited to him in Deuteronomy. It is farther to be observed
that the reference is to the long periods employed in creation as
contrasted with the limited space of years allotted to man. Its
meaning, too, is somewhat obscured by the inaccurate translation of
the third line. In the original it is, "From _olam_ to _olam_ thou
art, O El"--that is, "from age to age." These long ages of creation,
constituting a duration to us relatively eternal, were so protracted
that even a thousand years are but as a watch in the night. If this
Psalm is rightly attributed to the author of the first chapter of
Genesis, it seems absolutely certain that he understood his own
creative days as being _Olamim_ or aeons. The same thought occurs in
the Second Epistle of Peter: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day."
That the other writers of the Old Testament understood the creative
days in this sense, might be inferred from the entire absence of any
reference to the work of creation as short, since it occupied only six
days. Such reference we may find in modern writers, but never in the
Scriptures. On the contrary, we receive the impression of the creative
work as long continued. Thus the divine Wisdom says in Prov. viii.,
The Lord possessed me "from the beginning of his way before his works
of old, from everlasting, before the antiquities of the earth." So in
Psalm cxlv., God's kingdom relatively to nature and providence is a
kingdom "of all ages." In Psalm civ., which is a poetical version of
the creative work, and the oldest extant commentary on Genesis i., it
is evident that there was no idea in the mind of the writer of a short
time, but rather of long consecutive processes; and I may remark here
that the course of the narrative itself in Genesis i., implies time
for the replenishing of the earth with various forms of being in
preparation for others, exactly as in Psalm civ.
Perhaps one of the most conclusive arguments in favor of the length of
the creative days is that furnished by the seventh day and the
institution of the Sabbath. In Genesis the seventh day is not said to
have had any evening or morning, nor is God said to have resumed his
work on any eighth day. Consequently the seventh day of creation must
be still current. Now in the fourth commandment the Israelites are
enjoined to "remember the Sabbath-day," because "in six days God
created the heavens and the earth." Observe here that the Sabbath is
to be remembered as an institution already known. Observe farther that
the commandment is placed in the middle of the Decalogue, a solitary
piece of apparently arbitrary ritual amid the plainest and most
obvious moral duties. Observe also that the reason given--namely,
God's six days' work and seventh day's rest--seems at first sight both
far-fetched and trivial, as an argument for abstaining from work in a
seventh part of our time. How is all this to be explained? Simply, I
think, on the supposition that the Lawgiver, and those for whom he
legislated, knew beforehand the history of creation and the fall, as
we have them recorded in Genesis, and knew that God's days are aeons.
The argument is not, "God worked on six natural days, and rested on
the seventh; do you therefore the same." Such an argument could have
no moral or religious force, more especially as it could not be
affirmed that God habitually works and rests in this way. The argument
reaches far deeper and higher. It is this. God created the world in
six of his days, and on the seventh rested, and invited man in Eden to
enter on his rest as a perpetual Sabbath of happiness. But man fell,
and lost God's Sabbath. Therefore a weekly Sabbath was prescribed to
him as a memorial of what he had lost, and a pledge of what God has
promised in the renewal of life and happiness through our Saviour.
Thus the Sabbath is the central point of the moral law--the Gospel in
the Decalogue--the connection between God and man through the promise
of redemption. It is this and this alone that gives it its true
religious significance, but is lost on the natural-day theory. It
would farther seem that this view of the law was that of our Lord
himself, and was known to the Jews of his time, for, when blamed for
healing a man on the Sabbath, he says, "My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work"--an argument whose force depended on the fact that God
continues to work in his providence throughout his long Sabbath, which
has never been broken except by man. Farther, the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews takes this view in arguing as to the rest or
Sabbatism that remains to the people of God. His argument (chap. iv.,
4) may be stated thus: God finished his work and entered into his
rest. Man, in consequence of the fall, failed to do so. He has made
several attempts since, but unsuccessfully. Now Christ has finished
his work, and has entered into his Sabbath, and through him we may
enter into that rest of God which otherwise we can not attain to. This
does not, it is true, refer to the keeping of a Sabbath-day; but it
implies an understanding of the reference to God's olamic Sabbath,
and also implies that Christ, having entered into his Sabbatism in
heaven, gives us a warrant for the Christian Sabbath or Lord's day,
which has the same relation to Christ's present Sabbatism in heaven
that the old Sabbath had to God's rest from his work of creation.[49]
We may add to these considerations the use of the Greek term _Ai[=o]n_
in the New Testament, for what may be called time-worlds as
distinguished from space-worlds. For example, take the expression in
Heb. i., 2: "His Son, by whom he made the worlds," or, literally,
"constituted the aeons"--the long time-worlds of the creation. For
God's worlds must exist in time as well as in space, and both may to
our minds alike appear as infinities. If, then, we find that Moses
himself seems to have understood his creative days as aeons, that the
succeeding Old Testament writers favor the same view, that this view
is essential to the true significance of the Sabbath and the Lord's
day, and that it is sustained by Christ and his apostles, there is
surely no need for our clinging to a mediaeval notion which has no
theological value, and is in opposition to the facts of nature. On the
contrary, should not even children be taught these grand truths, and
led to contemplate the great work of Him who is from aeon to aeon, and
to think of that Sabbatism which he prepared for us, and which he
still offers to us in the future, in connection with the succession of
worlds in time revealed by geology, and which rivals in grandeur and
perhaps exceeds in interest the extension of worlds in space revealed
by astronomy. In truth, we should bear in mind that the great
revelations of astronomy have too much habituated us to think of
space-worlds rather than time-worlds, while the latter idea was
evidently dominant with the Biblical writers as it is also with modern
geologists. Viewed as aeons--divine days, or time-worlds--the days of
creation are thus a reality for all ages; and connect themselves with
the highest moral teachings of the Bible in relation to the fall of
man and God's plan for his restoration, begun in this seventh aeon of
the world's long history, and to be completed in that second divine
Sabbatism, secured by the work of redemption, the final "rest" of the
"new heavens and new earth," which remains for the people of God.
But supposing that the inspired writer intended to say that the world
was formed in six long periods of time, could not he have used some
other word than _yom_ that would have been liable to fewer doubts.
There are words which might have been used, as, for instance, _eth_,
time, season, or _olam_, age, ancient time, eternity. The former,
however, has about it a want of precision as to its beginning and end
which unfits it for this use; the latter we have already seen is used
as equivalent to the creative _yom_. On the whole, I am unable to
find any instance which would justify me in affirming that, on the
supposition that Moses intended long periods, he could have better
expressed the idea than by the use of the word _yom_, more especially
if he and those to whom he wrote were familiar with the thought,
preserved to us in the mythology of the Hindoos and Persians, and
probably widely diffused in ancient Asia, that a working day of the
Creator immeasurably transcends a working day of man.[50]
Many objections to the view which I have thus endeavored to support
from internal evidence will at once occur to every intelligent reader
familiar with the literature of this subject. I shall now attempt to
give the principal of these objections a candid consideration.
(1.) It is objected that the time occupied in the work of creation is
given as a reason for the observance of the seventh day as a Sabbath;
and that this requires us to view the days of creation as literal
days. "For in six days Jehovah made the heaven and the earth, the sea
and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; therefore
Jehovah blessed the Sabbath-day and sanctified it." The argument used
here is, however, as we have already seen, one of analogy. Because God
rested on his seventh day, he blessed and sanctified it, and required
men in like manner to sanctify their seventh day.[51] Now, if it
should appear that the working day of God is not the same with the
working day of man, and that the Sabbath of God is of proportionate
length to his working day, the analogy is not weakened; more
especially as we find the same analogy extended to the seventh year.
If it should be said, God worked in the creation of the world in six
long ages, and rested on the seventh, therefore man, in commemoration
of this fact, and of his own loss of an interest in God's rest by the
fall, shall sanctify the seventh of his working days, the argument is
stronger, the example more intelligible, than on the common
supposition. This objection is, in fact, a piece of pedantic
hyperorthodoxy which has too long been handed about without
investigation. I may add to what has been already said in reference to
it, the following vigorous thrust by Hugh Miller:[52]
"I can not avoid thinking that many of our theologians attach a too
narrow meaning to the remarkable reason attached to the fourth
commandment by the divine Lawgiver. "God rested on the seventh day,"
says the text, "from all his work which he had created and made; and
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." And such is the reason
given in the Decalogue why man should rest on the Sabbath-day. God
rested on the Sabbath-day and sanctified it; and therefore man ought
also to rest on the Sabbath and keep it holy. But I know not where we
shall find grounds for the belief that the Sabbath-day during which
God rested was merely commensurate with one of the Sabbaths of
short-lived man--a brief period measured by a single revolution of the
earth on its axis. We have not, as has been shown, a shadow of
evidence that he resumed his work of creation on the morrow; the
geologist finds no trace of post-Adamic creation; the theologian can
tell us of none. God's Sabbath of rest may still exist; the work of
redemption may be the work of his Sabbath-day. That elevatory process
through successive acts of creation, which engaged him during myriads
of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character; but when the term of
his moral government began, the elevatory process peculiar to it
assumed the divine character of the Sabbath. This special view appears
to lend peculiar emphasis to the reason embodied in the commandment.
The collation of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by
a species of retranslation, to make it enunciate as its injunction,
"Keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to a past
fact, but also as a day of co-operation with God in the work of
elevation, in relation both to a present fact and a future purpose."
"God keeps his Sabbath," it says, "in order that he may save; keep
yours also that ye may be saved." It serves besides to throw light on
the prominence of the Sabbatical command, in a digest of law of which
no jot or tittle can pass away until the fulfillment of all things.
During the present dynasty of probation and trial, that special work
of both God and man on which the character of the future dynasty
depends is the Sabbath-day work of saving and being saved.
"The common objection to that special view which regards the days of
creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a
specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from
a mere assumption. It first takes for granted that the Sabbath-day
during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours, and then
argues from the supposition that, in order to keep up the proportion
between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest,
which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these
previous days must also have been twenty-four hours each. It would, I
have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and
be at least equally in accordance with Scripture, to reverse the
process, and argue that because God's working days were immensely
protracted periods, his Sabbath also must be an immensely protracted
period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be
simply a reason of proportion: the objection to which I refer is an
objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion, and
certainly were the reason to be divested of proportion, it would be
divested also of its distinctive character as a reason. Were it as
follows, it could not be at all understood: "Six days shalt thou
labor, etc.; but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labor, etc.; for
in six immensely protracted periods of several thousand years each did
the Lord make the heavens and the earth, etc.; and then rested during
a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore the Lord blessed the brief
day of twenty-four hours and hallowed it." This, I repeat, would not
be reason. All, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the
reason, in its character as such, is that the proportion of six parts
to seven should be maintained. God's periods may be periods expressed
algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantities, and man's
periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known; but if God's
Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man's Sabbath
equal to one of his six working days, the integrity of proportion is
maintained."
Not only does this view of the case entirely remove the objection,
but, as we have already seen, it throws a new light on the nature and
reason of the Sabbath. No good reason, except that of setting an
example, can be assigned for God's resting for a literal day. But if
God's Sabbath of rest from natural creation is still in progress, and
if our short Sabbaths are symbolical of the work of that great Sabbath
in its present gray morning and in its coming glorious noon, then may
the Christian thank this question, incidentally raised by geology and
its long periods, for a ray of light which shines along the whole
course of Scripture history, from the first Sabbath up to that final
"rest which remaineth for the people of God."[53]
(2.) It is objected that evening and morning are ascribed to the first
day. This has been already noticed; it may here be considered more
fully. The word evening in the original is literally the darkening,
the sunset, the dusk. Morning is the _opening_ or _breaking forth_ of
light--the daybreak. It must not be denied that the explanation of
these terms is attended with some difficulty, but this is not at all
lessened by narrowing the day to twenty-four hours. The first
operation of the first day was the creation of light; next we have the
Creator contemplating his work and pronouncing it to be good; then we
have the separation of the light and darkness, previously, it is to be
presumed, intermixed; and all this without the presence of a sun or
other luminary. Which of these operations occupied the evening, and
which the morning, if the day consisted of but twenty-four hours,
beginning, according to Hebrew custom, in the evening? Was the old
primeval darkness the evening or night, and the first breaking forth
of light morning? This is almost the only view compatible with the
Hebrew civil day beginning at evening, but it would at once lengthen
the day beyond twenty-four hours, and contradict the terms of the
record. Again, were the separated light and darkness the morning and
evening? If so, why is the evening mentioned first, contrary to the
supposed facts of the case? why, indeed, are the evening and morning
mentioned at all, since on that supposition this is merely a
repetition? Lastly, shall we adopt the ingenious expedient of dividing
the evening and morning between two days, and maintaining that the
evening belongs to the first and the morning to the second day, which
would deprive the first day of a morning, and render the creative
days, whatever their length, altogether different from Hebrew natural
or civil days? It is unnecessary to pursue such inquiries farther,
since it is evident that the terms of the record will not agree with
the supposition of natural evening and morning. This is of itself a
strong presumption against the hypothesis of civil days, since the
writer was under no necessity so to word these verses that they would
not give any rational or connected sense on the supposition of natural
evening and morning, unless he wished to be otherwise understood.
But what is the meaning of evening and morning, if these days were
long periods? Here fewer difficulties meet us. First: It is readily
conceivable that the beginning and end of a period named a day should
be called evening and morning. But what made the use of these
divisions necessary or appropriate? I answer that nature and
revelation both give grounds at least to suspect that the evening, or
earlier part of each period, was a time of comparative inaction,
sometimes even of retrogression, and that the latter part of each
period was that of its greatest activity and perfection. Thus, on the
views stated in a former chapter, in the first day there was a time
when luminous matter, either gradually concentrating itself toward the
sun, or surrounding the earth itself, shed a dim but slowly increasing
light; then there were day and night, the light increasing in
intensity as, toward the end of the period, the luminous matter became
more and more concentrated around the sun. So in our own seventh day,
the earlier part was a time of deplorable retrogression, and though
the Sun of Righteousness has arisen, we have seen as yet only a dim
and cloudy morning. On the theory of days of vision, as expounded by
Hugh Miller, in the "Testimony of the Rocks," in one of his noblest
passages, the evening and night fall on each picture presented to the
seer like the curtain of a stage. Secondly: Though the explanation
stated above is the most probable, the hypothesis of long periods
admits of another, namely, that the writer means to inform us that
evening and morning, once established by the separation of light from
darkness, continued without cessation throughout the remainder of the
period--rolling from this time uninterruptedly around our planet, like
the seal cylinder over the clay.[54] This explanation is, however,
less applicable to the following days than to the first. Nor does this
accord with the curious fact that the seventh day, which, on the
hypothesis of long periods, is still in progress, is not said to have
had an evening or morning.
(3.) It is objected that the first chapter of Genesis "is not a poem
nor a piece of oratorical diction," but a simple prosaic narrative,
and consequently that its terms must be taken in a literal sense. In
answer to this, I urge that the most truly literal sense of the word,
namely, the _natural_ day, is excluded by the terms of the narrative;
and that the word may be received as a literal day of the Creator, in
the sense of one of his working periods, without involving the use of
poetical diction, and in harmony with the wording of plain prosaic
passages in other parts of the Bible. Examples of this have already
been given. It is, however, true that, though the first chapter of
Genesis is not strictly poetical, it is thrown into a metrical form
which admits of some approach to a figurative expression in the case
of a term of this kind.
(4.) It has been urged that in cases where day is used to denote
period, as in the expressions "day of calamity," etc., the adjuncts
plainly show that it can not mean an ordinary day. In answer to this,
I merely refer to the internal evidence already adduced, and to the
deliberate character of the statements, in the manner rather of the
description of processes than of acts. The difficulties attending the
explanation of the evening and the morning, and the successive
creation of herbivorous and carnivorous animals, are also strong
indications which should serve here to mark the sense, just as the
context does in the cases above referred to.
(5.) In Professor Hitchcock's valuable and popular "Religion of
Geology," I find some additional objections, which deserve notice as
specimens of the learned trifles which pass current among writers on
this subject, much to the detriment of sound Scriptural literature. I
give them in the words of the author. 1. "From Genesis ii., 5 compared
with Genesis i., 11 and 12, it seems that it had not rained on the
earth till the third day; a fact altogether probable if the days were
of twenty-four hours, but absurd if they were long periods." It
strikes us that the absurdity here is all on the side of the short
days. Why should any prominence be given to a fact so common as the
lapse of two ordinary days without rain, more especially if a region
of the earth and not the whole is referred to, and in a document
prepared for a people residing in climates such as those of Egypt and
Palestine. But what could be more instructive and confirmatory of the
truth of the narrative than the fact that in the two long periods
which preceded the formation and clearing up of the atmosphere or
firmament, on which rain depends, and the elevation of the dry land,
which so greatly modifies its distribution, there had been no rain
such as now occurs. This is a most important fact, and one of the
marked coincidences of the record with scientific truth. The
objection, therefore, merely shows that the ordinary day hypothesis
tends to convert one of the finest internal harmonies of this
wonderful history into an empty and, in some respects, absurd
commonplace. 2. "This hypothesis (that days are long periods) assumes
that Moses describes the creation of all the animals and plants that
have ever lived on our globe. But geology decides that the species now
living, since they are not found in the rocks any lower than man
is,[55] could not have been contemporaneous with those in the rocks,
but must have been created when man was--that is, in the sixth day. Of
such a creation no mention is made in Genesis; the inference is that
Moses does not describe the creation of the existing races, but only
of those that lived thousands of years earlier, and whose existence
was scarcely suspected till modern times. Who will admit such an
absurdity?" In answer to this objection, I remark that it is based on
a false assumption. The hypothesis of long periods does not require us
to assume that Moses notices all the animals and plants that have ever
lived, but on the contrary that he informs us only of the _first
appearance_ of each great natural type in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms; just as he informs us of the first appearance of dry land on
the third day, but says nothing of the changes which it underwent on
subsequent days. Thus plants were created on the third day, and though
they may have been several times destroyed and renewed as to genera
and species, we infer that they continued to exist in all the
succeeding days, though the inspired historian does not inform us of
the fact. So also many tribes of animals were created in the early
part of the fifth day, and it is quite unnecessary for us to be
informed that these tribes continued to exist through the sixth day.
If the days were long periods, the inspired writer could not have
adopted any other course, unless he had been instructed to write a
treatise on Palaeontology, and to describe the fauna and flora of each
successive period with their characteristic differences. 3. "Though
there is a general resemblance between the order of creation as
described in Genesis and by geology, yet when we look at the details
of the creation of the organic world, as required by this hypothesis,
we find manifest discrepancy. Thus the Bible represents plants only to
have been created on the third day, and animals not till the fifth;
and hence at least the lower half of the fossiliferous rocks ought to
contain nothing but vegetables. Whereas in fact the lower half of
these rocks, all below the carboniferous, although abounding in
animals, contain scarcely any plants, and these in the lowest strata
fucoids or sea-weeds. But the Mosaic account evidently describes
flowering and seed-bearing plants, not flowerless and seedless algae.
Again, reptiles are described in Genesis as created on the fifth day;
but reptilia and batrachians existed as early as the time when the
lower carboniferous and even old red sandstone were in course of
deposition, as their tracks on those rocks in Nova Scotia and
Pennsylvania evince.[56] In short, if we maintain that Moses describes
fossils as well as living species, we find discrepancy instead of
correspondence between his order of creation and that of geology." In
this objection it is assumed that the geological history of the earth
goes back to the third day of creation, or, in other words, to the
dawn of organic life. None of the greater authorities in geology
would, however, now venture to make such an assertion, and the
progress of geology is rapidly making the contrary more and more
probable. The fact is that, on the supposition that the days of
creation are long periods, the whole series of the fossiliferous rocks
belongs to the fifth and sixth days; and that for the early plant
creation of the third day, and the great physical changes of the
fourth, geology has nothing as yet to show, except a mass of
metamorphosed eozoic rocks which have hitherto yielded no fossils
except a few Protozoa; but which contain vast quantities of carbon in
the form of graphite, which may be the remains of plants.
I have much pleasure in quoting, as a further answer to these
objections, the following from Professor Dana:[57]
"Accepting the account in Genesis as true, the seeming discrepancy
between it and geology rests mainly here: Geology holds, and has held
from the first, that the progress of creation was mainly through
secondary causes; for the existence of the science presupposes this.
Moses, on the contrary, was thought to sustain the idea of a simple
fiat for each step. Grant this first point to science, and what
farther conflict is there? _The question of the length of time_, it is
replied. But not so; for if we may take the record as allowing more
than six days of twenty-four hours, the Bible then places no limit to
time. _The question of the days and periods_, it is replied again. But
this is of little moment in comparison with the first principle
granted. Those who admit the length of time and stand upon days of
twenty-four hours have to place geological time _before_ the six days,
and then assume a chaos and reordering of creation, on the six-day and
fiat principle, after a previous creation that had operated for a long
period through secondary causes. Others take days as periods, and thus
allow the required time, admitting that creation was one in progress,
a grand whole, instead of a _first_ creation excepting man by one
method, and a _second_ with man by the other. This is now the
remaining question between the theologians and geologists; for all the
minor points, as to the exact interpretation of each day, do not
affect the general concordance or discordance of the Bible and
science.
"On this point geology is now explicit in its decision, and indeed has
long been so. It proves that there was no return to chaos, no great
revolution, that creation was beyond doubt one in its progress. We
know that some geologists have taken the other view. But it is only in
the capacity of theologians, and not as geologists. The Rev. Dr.
Buckland, in placing the great events of geology between the first and
second verses of the Mosaic account, did not pretend that there was a
geological basis for such an hypothesis; and no writer since has ever
brought forward the first fact in geology to support the idea of a
rearrangement just before man; not one solitary fact has ever been
appealed to. The conclusion was on Biblical grounds, and not in any
sense on geological. The best that Buckland could say, when he wrote
twenty-five years since, was that geology did not absolutely disprove
such an hypothesis; and that can not be said now.
"It is often asserted, in order to unsettle confidence in these
particular teachings of geology, that geology is a changing science.
In this connection the remark conveys an erroneous impression. Geology
is a progressive science; and all its progress tends to establish more
firmly these two principles: (1) The slow progress of creation through
secondary causes, as explained; and (2) the progress by periods
analogous to the days of Genesis."
I have, I trust, shown that the principal objections to the
lengthening of the Mosaic days into great cosmical periods are of a
character too light and superficial to deserve any regard. I shall now
endeavor to add to the internal evidence previously given some
considerations of an external character which support this view.
1. The fact that the creation was progressive, that it proceeded from
the formation of the raw material of the universe, through successive
stages, to the perfection of living organisms, if we regard the
analogy of God's operations as disclosed in the geological history of
the earth and in the present course of nature, must impress us with a
suspicion that long periods were employed in the work. God might have
prepared the earth for man in an instant. He did not choose to do so,
but on the contrary proceeded step by step; and the record he has
given us does not receive its full significance nor attain its full
harmony with the course of geological history, unless we can
understand each day of the creative week as including a long
succession of ages.
2. We have, as already explained, reason to believe that the seventh
day at least has been of long duration. At the close of the sixth, God
rested from all his work of material creation, and we have as yet no
evidence that he has resumed it. Neither theologians nor evolutionists
will, I presume, desire to maintain that any strictly creative acts
have occurred in the modern period of geology. We know that the
present day, if it is the seventh, has lasted already for at least six
thousand years, and, if we may judge from the testimony of prophecy,
has yet a long space to run, before it merges in that "new heaven and
new earth" for which all believers look, and which will constitute the
first day of an endless sabbatism.
3. The philosophical and religious systems of many ancient nations
afford intimations of the somewhat extensive prevalence in ancient
times of the notion of long creative periods, corresponding to the
Mosaic days. These notions, in so far as they are based on truth, are
probably derived from the Mosaic narrative itself, or from the
primitive patriarchal documents which may have formed the basis of
that narrative. They are, no doubt, all more or less garbled versions,
and can not be regarded as of any authority, but they serve to show
what was the interpretation of the document in a very remote
antiquity. I have collected from a variety of sources the following
examples:
The ancient mythology of Persia appears to have had six creative
periods, each apparently of a thousand years, and corresponding very
nearly with the Mosaic days.[58] The Chaldeans had a similar system,
to which in a previous chapter we have already referred. The Etruscans
possessed a history of the creation, somewhat resembling that of the
Bible, and representing the creation as occupying six periods of a
thousand years each.[59]
The Egyptians believed that the world had been subject to a series of
destructions and renewals, the intervals between which amounted to
120,000 years, or, according to other authorities, to 300,000 or
360,000 years. This system of destruction and renewal the Egyptian
priests appear to have wrought out into considerable detail, but
though important truths may be concealed under their mysterious
dogmas, it will not repay us to dwell on the fragments that remain of
them. There can be no doubt, however, that at least the basis of the
Egyptian cosmogony must have been the common property of all the
Hamite nations, of which Egypt was the greatest and most permanent;
and therefore in all probability derived from the ideas of creation
which were current not long after the Deluge. The Egyptians appear
also, as already stated, to have had a physical cosmogony, beginning
with a chaos in which heaven and earth were mingled, and from which
were evolved fiery matters which ascended into the heavens, and moist
earthy matters which formed the earth and the sea; and from these were
produced, by the agency of solar heat, the various animals. The terms
of this cosmogony, as it is given by Diodorus Siculus, indicate the
belief of long formative periods.[60]
The Hindoos have a somewhat extended, though, according to the
translations, a not very intelligible cosmogony. It plainly, however,
asserts long periods of creative work, and is interesting as an
ancient cosmogony preserved entire and without transmission through
secondary channels. The following is a summary, in so far as I have
been able to gather it, from the translation of the Institutes of Menu
by Sir W. Jones.[61]
The introduction to the Institutes represents Menu as questioned by
the "divine sages" respecting the laws that should regulate all
classes or castes. He proceeds to detail the course of creation,
stating that the "Self-existing Power,[62] undiscovered, but making
this world discernible, He whom the mind alone can perceive, whose
essence eludes the external senses, who has no visible parts, who
exists from eternity, even the soul of all being, whom no being can
comprehend, shone forth in person."
After giving this exalted view of the Creator, the writer proceeds to
state that the Self-existent created the waters, and then an egg, from
which he himself comes forth as Brahma the forefather of spirits. "The
waters are called Nara because they are the production of _Nara_, the
spirit of God, and since they were his first _Ayana_, or place of
motion, he thence is named _Narayana_, or moving on the waters. In the
egg Brahma remained a year, and caused the egg to divide, forming the
heaven above and the earth beneath, and the subtile ether, the eight
regions, and the receptacle of waters between. He then drew forth from
the supreme soul mind with all its powers and properties." The rest of
the account appears to be very confused, and I confess to a great
extent unintelligible to me. There follows, however, a continuation
of the narrative, stating that there is a succession of seven Menus,
each of whom produces and supports the earth during his reign. It is
in the account of these successive Menus that the following statement
respecting the days and years of Brahma occurs:
"A day of the Gods is equal to a year. Four thousand years of the Gods
are called a Critya or Satya age. Four ages are an age of the Gods.
_One thousand divine ages (equal to more than four millions of human
years) are a day of Brahma the Creator._ Seventy-two divine ages are
one manwantara. * * * The aggregate of four ages they call a divine
age, and believe that in every thousand such ages, or in every day of
Brahma, fourteen Menus are successively invested with the sovereignty
of the earth. Each Menu they suppose transmits his authority to his
sons and grandsons during a period of seventy-two divine ages, and
such a period they call a manwantara. Thirty such days (of the
Creator), or calpas, constitute a month of Brahma; twelve such months
one of his years, and 100 such years his age, of which they assert
that fifty years have elapsed. We are thus, according to the Hindoos,
in the first day or calpa of the fifty-first year of Brahma's life,
and in the twenty-eighth divine age of the _seventh manwantara_ of
that day. In the present day of Brahma the first Menu was named the
Son of the Self-existent, and by him the institutes of religion and
civil duties are said to have been delivered. In his time occurred a
new creation called the _Lotos_ creation." Of five Menus who succeeded
him, Sir William could find little but the names, but the accounts of
the seventh are very full, and it appears that in his reign the earth
was destroyed by a flood. Sir William suggests that the first Menu may
represent the creation, and that the seventh may be Noah. The name
Menu or Manu is equivalent to "man," and signifies "the
intelligent."[63]
In this Hindoo cosmogony we have many points of correspondence with
the Scripture narrative: for instance, the Self-existent Creator; the
agency of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit; the absolute creation of
matter; the hovering of the Spirit over the primeval waters; the
sevenfold division of the creative process; and the idea of days of
the Creator of immense duration. If we suppose the day of Brahma in
the Hindoo cosmogony to represent the Mosaic day, then it amounts to
no less than 4,320,000 years; or if, with Sir W. Jones, we suppose the
manwantara to represent the Mosaic day, its duration will be 308,571
years; and the total antiquity of the earth, without counting the
undefined "beginning," will be either more than twenty-five or than
two millions of years. It would be folly, however, to suppose that
these Hindoo numbers, which are probably purely conjectural, or based
on astronomical cycles, make any near approximation to the facts of
the case. The Institutes of Menu are probably in their present form
not of great antiquity, but there are other Hindoo documents of
greater age which maintain similar views, and it is probable that the
account of the creation in the Institutes is at least an imperfect
version of the original narrative as it existed among the earliest
colonists of India.[64] It corresponds in many points with the oldest
notions on these subjects that remain to us in the wrecks of the
mythology of Egypt and other ancient nations, and it aids in proving
that the fabulous ages of gods and demigods in the ancient mythologies
_are really pre-Adamite_; and belong not to human history, but to the
work of creation. It also shows that the idea of long creative periods
as equivalents of the Mosaic days must, in the infancy of the
postdiluvian world, have been very widely diffused. Such evidence is,
no doubt, of small authority in the interpretation of Scripture; but
it must be admitted that serious consideration is due to a method of
interpretation which thus tends to bring the Mosaic account into
harmony with the facts of modern science, and with the belief of
almost universal antiquity, and at the same time gives it its fullest
significance and most perfect internal symmetry of parts. It is also
very interesting to note the wide diffusion among the most ancient
nations of cosmological views identical in their main features with
those of the Bible, proving, almost beyond doubt, that these views had
some common and very ancient source, and commanded universal belief
among the primitive tribes of men.
I have hitherto in this part of the discussion avoided detailed
reference to what may be regarded as the "prophetic day" view of the
narrative of creation. This may be shortly stated as follows: In the
prophetical parts of Scripture the prophet sees in vision, as in a
picture or acted scene, the events that are to come to pass, and in
consequence represents years or longer periods by days of vision. Now
the revelation of the pre-Adamite past is in its nature akin to that
of the unknown future; and Moses may have seen these wondrous events
in vision--in visions of successive days--under the guise of which he
presents geological time. Some things in the form of the narrative
favor this view, and it certainly affords the most clearly
intelligible theory as to the mode in which such a revelation may have
been made to man. It is advocated by Kurtz, by the author of an
excellent little work, the "Harmony of the Mosaic and Geological
Records," by Hugh Miller, and more recently by Tayler Lewis. To these
writers I must refer for its more full illustration, and for the grand
pictorial view which it gives of the vision of the creative week.
In reviewing the somewhat lengthy train of reasoning into which the
term "day" has led us, it appears that from internal evidence alone it
can be rendered probable that the day of creation is neither the
natural nor the civil day. It also appears that the objections urged
against the doctrine of day-periods are of no weight when properly
scrutinized, and that it harmonizes with the progressive nature of the
work, the evidence of geology, and the cosmological notions of ancient
nations. I do not suppose that this position has been incontrovertibly
established; but I believe that every serious difficulty has been
removed from its acceptance; and with this, for the present, I remain
satisfied. Every step of our subsequent progress will afford new
criteria of its truth or fallacy.
One further question of some interest is--What, according to the
theory of long creative days and the testimony of geology, would be
the length and precise cosmical nature of these days? With regard to
the first part of the question, we do not know the actual value of our
geological ages in time; but it is probable that each great creative
aeon may have extended through millions of years. As to the nature of
the days, this may have been determined by direct volitions of the
Creator, or indirectly by some of those great astronomical cycles
which arise from the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, or the
diminution of the velocity of its rotation, or by its gradual cooling.
With reference to these points, science has as yet little information
to give. Sir William Thomson has, indeed, indicated for the time since
the earth's crust first began to form a period of between one and two
hundred millions of years; but Professor Guthrie Tait, on the other
hand, argues that ten or fifteen millions of years are probably
sufficient,[65] and Lockyer has suggested an hypothesis of successive
rekindlings of the solar heat which might give a more protracted time
than that of Thomson. Some of the hypotheses of derivation current,
but which are based rather on philosophical speculation than on
scientific fact, would also require a longer time than that allowed by
Thomson; and it is to be regretted that some geologists, by giving
credence to such hypotheses of derivation, and by loose reasoning on
the time required for the denudation and deposition of rocks, have
been induced to commit themselves to very extravagant estimates as to
geological time. On the whole, it is evident that only the most vague
guesses can at present be based on the facts in our possession, though
the whole time required has unquestionably been very great, the
deposition of the series of stratified rocks probably requiring at
least the greater part of the minimum time allowed by Thomson.[66]
As to the cosmical nature of the periods, while some geologists appear
to regard the whole of geological time as a continuous evolution
without any breaks, it is evidently more in accordance with facts to
hold that there have been cycles of repose and activity succeeding
each other, and that these have been of different grades. In the
succession of deposits it is plain that periods of depression and
upheaval common to all the continental masses have succeeded each
other at somewhat regular intervals, and that within these periods
there have been alternations of colder and warmer climates. These,
however, are not equal to the creative days of our record, for they
are greatly more numerous. They are but the vastly protracted hours of
these almost endless days. Beyond and above these there is another
grade of geological period, marked not by mere gradual elevation and
depression of the continental areas, but by vast crumplings of the
earth's crust and enormous changes of level. Such a great movement
unquestionably closed the Eozoic period of geology. Another of less
magnitude occurred in what is termed the Permian age at the end of the
Palaeozoic. A third terminated the Mesozoic age, and introduced the
Tertiary or Kainozoic. Perhaps we should reckon the glacial age,
though characterized by far less physical change than the others, as a
fourth. The possible physical causes which have been suggested for
such greater disturbances are the collapses of the crust in equatorial
regions, which may be supposed to have resulted at long intervals of
time, from the gradual retardation of the earth's rotation caused by
the tides, or the similar collapses and other changes due to the
shrinkages of the earth's interior caused by its gradual cooling, and
to the unequal deposition of material by water on different parts of
its surface.[67] The more full discussion of these points belongs,
however, to a future chapter.
These greater movements of the crust, would, as already stated,
coincide to some extent with the later creative days in the manner
indicated below:
==================================================================
Collapse of crust at close of | Close of Fourth AEon,
Eozoic Time, | and beginning of Fifth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Collapse in Permian Period and | Middle of Fifth AEon.
end of Palaeozoic Time, |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Great subsidence and collapse | Close of Fifth AEon, and beginning
at close of Mesozoic Age, | of Sixth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Great subsidence of the | End of Sixth AEon.
Pleistocene or Glacial Age, |
==================================================================
The question recurs--Why are God's days so long? He is not like us, a
being of yesterday. He is "from Olam to Olam," and even in human
history one day is with him as a thousand years; and we who live in
these later days of the world know full well how slow the march of his
plan has been even in human history. We shall know in the endless ages
of a future eternity that even to us these long creative days may at
last become but as watches in the night.